UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE

DEPARTMENT OF LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

COLLOQUIUM

"Causal Reasoning and Backtracking"

Abstract:"Causes do not invariably raise the probabilities of
their effects, nor are they generally evidence for their effects.
Learning about a cause can convey information about one of its effects
either via a direct cause-to-effect inference, which will confirm the
effect, or via a "backtracking" inference, which can disconfirm the
effect by indicating that stronger inhibiting causes will occur. My aim
is to find ways of separating the direct, or "front-door," evidence that
causes provide for their effects in virtue of being causes from any
backtracking evidence they might provide. In this way, I hope to
salvage an important part of the idea that causes generally provide
evidence for their effects. My argument relies heavily on the theory of
causal Bayesian networks developed in J. Pearl's Causality and P.
Spirtes, C. Glymour, and R. Scheines's Causation, Prediction and Search.
In particular, I will show how to use Pearl's method of "adjustment for
direct causes" to define functions that split the evidence that a cause
provides for its effect into a "direct" and "backtracking" part (at
least in the context of Markovian causal graphs). I will show that my
use of this method does not commit me to any problematic
"interventionist" metaphysics of causation of the sort that Pearl
recommends. Indeed, I shall argue that a proper understanding of the
epistemology of causation does not require a commitment to any specific
metaphysics of the notion. If time allows I will discuss some of the
limitations of the "causal net" approach in the context of my project,
and will say something about how these limitations might be overcome. A
complete copy of the talk will be on the web on Thursday, May 30 at
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jjoyce/."

James M. Joyce

Department of Philosophy

University of Michigan

Friday, May 31, 2002

3 pm

SST 777

James M. Joyce

A Bibliography
Compiled by
Eddie Yeghiayan

1992

"The Axiomatic Foundations of Bayesian Decision Theory."
PhD Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1992.
Abstract in Dissertation Abstracts
International (November 1992),
53(5A):1540-A.
Abstract:"Bayesian decision theorists argue that rational agents should always perform
acts that maximize subjective expected utility. To justify this claim, they prove
representation theorems which are designed to show that any decision maker
whose beliefs and desires satisfy reasonable axiomatic constraints will
necessarily behave like an expected utility maximizer. The existence of such a
representation result is a prerequisite for any adequate account of rational
choice because one is only able to determine what a decision theory says
about beliefs and desires by looking at the axioms used in the proof of its
representation result. I examine a number of versions of decision theory and
their representation theorems. Particular attention is paid to so-called causal
and evidential decision theories. It is argued that only the latter has an adequate
representation which is found in a theorem due to Ethan Bolker which was
adapted to the decision theoretic context by R. Jeffrey. I remove the single
outstanding problem with Bolker's theorem by reformulating it in a way which
yields a unique probability and utility representation. This is possible because,
unlike Bolker, I make use of axioms which govern not only preference but
comparative probability. I show how this reformulated version of Bolker's result
can be further generalized to a representation theorem for a generic theory of
conditional expected utility whose basic term is a function which measures the
strength of an agent's desires when he supposes that various hypotheses are
true. Evidential and causal decision theories are show to be special cases of
this generic theory. They differ only in the interpretation they give to the notion of
supposition. The evidential account interprets it indicatively, while the causal
account views it subjunctively. Finally, I show how my generic representation
theorem for conditional decision theory can serve as a foundation for both causal
and evidential decision theories. This provides the first fully adequate
representation result for causal decision theory, thereby removing its most
serious defect."

1993

1995

"Recent Work: Decision Theory." Philosophical Books
(October 1995), 36(4):225-236.
"I examine three areas of active
research in the foundation of decision theory: challenges to the
normative status of the subjective expected utility (SEU) model;
decision making dynamic contexts; and
the use of individual choice theory in the theory of games. I argue
that psychological studies which
establish that people do not obey fundamental tenets of SEU theory do
not affect the model's normative
status. Likewise, the recent attacks on Peter Hammond's
Consequentialist justification of expected utility
maximization by Mark Machina, Edward McClennen and Isaac Levi do not
succeed in defeating the SEU
model (though Levi's criticism do undermine Hammond's justification).
The essay closes with a discussion
of some recent clarifications of the game-theoretic equilibrium
concept. Particular attention is paid to Brian
Skyrm's program of deliberation dynamics and William Harper's
"ratifiabilist" approach to equilibrium
selection."

"A Non-Pragmatic Vindication of Probabilism." Philosophy of
Science (December 1998), 65(4):575-603.
"The pragmatic character of the Dutch
book argument makes it unsuitable as an "epistemic"
justification for the fundamental probabilist dogma that rational
partial beliefs must conform to the axioms
of probability. To secure an appropriately epistemic justification for
this conclusion, one must explain what
it means for a system of partial beliefs to accurately represent the
state of the world and then show that
partial beliefs that violate the laws of probability are invariably
less accurate than they could be otherwise."

Review of Brian Skyrms' The Evolution of the Social
Contract.
Philosophical Books (April 1998), 39(2):137-139.